Like nine-inning pitchers and fullbacks, basketball centers are tough to find

Published
2:56 pm CDT, Thursday, June 4, 2015

Like fullbacks in football and nine-inning pitchers, centers in college basketball are dwindling.

The quality postmen, like Indiana’s Noah Vonleh and Michigan’s Mitch McGary, are gone before their eligibility expires. And many young giants formerly known as centers are disguised as forwards. Nobody wants to be called a center nowadays.

Fifteen of 21 Illini opponents this season posted starting lineups without a center. Facing Illinois in Las Vegas last November, Indiana State reported with four guards and Baylor checked in with four forwards.

Of course, some of it is altered nomenclature. Maryland’s 6-9, 240-pound Damonte Dodd is a center by any reasonable description. He’s not tricking anyone. We know a rose by any name smells the same. Dodd’s a pure center.

This chicanery has been abounding for decades. Lou Tepper called onetime UI defensive end Simeon Rice a linebacker, and some people actually believed him. Dodd, by the way, averages only about 16 minutes for Maryland, so the Terps are operating without a center much of the time anyway.

And before you bring up sure-fire Big Ten MVP Frank Kaminsky, you’ll note the Wisconsin senior has been launching treys since his freshman year. He is more mobile than most 7-footers, and is shooting 40 percent on 52 arc-shots this season. So he’s not locked into the post like twin towers A.J. Hammons and Isaac Haas at Purdue, or Alex Olah at Northwestern.

Some facts:

• Of the Big Ten’s top 20 scorers, Kaminsky is the only one who could be described as a center. Next closest is Iowa’s 6-8 Jarrod Uthoff, who performs forward duties while 7-1 Adam Woodbury and 6-10 Gabriel Olaseni split post minutes. The league’s top scorers are PSU’s 6-4 D.J.Newbill and OSU’s 6-5 freshman D’Angelo Russell, the latter finishing so fast that he’s now considered Top 10 in mock drafts.

Against Indiana Sunday, coach Thad Matta pulled senior center Amir Williams and “went small,” and the Buckeyes shot a blistering 62.3 percent to outrun the Hoosiers, who had been playing better since their center, Hanner Mosquera-Perea, was sidelined (knee cap). Matta’s move reminded of two years ago when the Buckeyes reached the Elite Eight after Matta benched Williams and went with forwards Deshaun Thomas and LaQuinton Ross in the front line.

Oh, sure, if you’re Kentucky, size matters. According to mock drafts, John Calipari has lassoed three of the nation’s top collegiate centers in Karl-Anthony Towns, Willie Cauley-Stein and Dakari Johnson. Towns and Cauley-Stein are projected to go soon after Duke freshman center Jahlil Okafor.

But Kentucky is the exception to all rules. For nearly everyone else, there aren’t enough centers to go around and, if you land a good one, he’s hard to keep.

The reason for all this center talk is to emphasize that Illinois, with the addition of Tracy Abrams and deadeye recruit Jalen Coleman-Lands, can field the same kind of firecracker team in 2016 that Ohio State, Indiana and Maryland are right now.

At tournament time, tell me: Isn’t it guard play, like that displayed by U-Conn last season, that catches your eye? Aren’t playmakers the March tone-setters? Don’t you find yourself pulling for the playing styles of Villanova and Iowa State?

Look back. Seven-foot Jens Kujawa moved to Germany after his junior year, and the Flying Illini were even better with 6-7 Lowell Hamilton at center in 1989. The starting unit for the 37-2 team in 2005 wasn’t exactly towering, although James Augustine was a legit 6-10 in the middle.

Speed kills. So if Illinois finds it preferable to “go small” next year - if Coleman-Lands forces his way into a lineup that begins with Abrams, Kendrick Nunn and Malcolm Hill - that’s no different than a lot of explosive teams are doing this season.